Check if pip is installed on Windows using python subprocess

Question

I am using python to check whether pip is installed on the system or not. The code I have written is:

subprocess.run(["pip"],shell=True)

and I am getting the following error:

'pip' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

I have tried passing my system env to run using

env = os.environ.copy()
subprocess.run(["pip"],shell=True,env=env)

but still no luck. I installed pip on my Windows machine using get-pip.py

Answer 1

If CreateProcess (that subproces.run invokes) does not recognize pip as a command, it may recognize python? So you could do: subprocess.run(['python3', '-m', 'pip']) maybe?

Answer 2

You need to add the path of your pip installation to your PATH system variable. Type echo $PATH$ to check if it already there or not.

Answer 3

On Windows, pip will not necessarily be in the PATH environment variable, so a simple run of pip may not find it.

If pip is installed in the currently running Python, you should be able to import its module:

pip_present = True
try:
    import pip
except ImportError:
    pip_present = False

If you want to run it using subprocess , you can get its usual location relative to the currently running Python using things in sys :

pip_path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.executable), "Scripts", "pip.exe")
subprocess.run([pip_path])

Answer 4

You can check the return code of the command as such:

import sys
import subprocess

def pip_installed():
    pip_check = subprocess.run([sys.executable, "-m", "pip"])
    return not bool(pip_check.returncode)

This will check the returncode. If returncode is 0, that means pip is installed and will return True For any other value it will return False